I am Sophie, a Swedish woman by birth but English by adoption. I have a little mud hotel in the beautiful and ancient West African town of Djenne, Mali. WWW.HOTELDJENNEDJENNO.COM Because of unstable political
situation, tourism has ground to a halt. Hotel still open! But hotel staff mainly working in Bogolan studio now: www.malimali.org check out our fab online shop!

Tuesday, August 05, 2014

Satane

This lady, Satane, lives in Diabolo. Her name in
combination with the already startling name of the village cunjures up fearsome
ideas which could not be further removed from this sweet natured old lady who I
met for the first time in 2007, when this picture was taken. She was old then,
but she still worked, painting her lovely fine patterns on the ‘paignes’ made
from the coarse woven cotton strips The bogolan was made originally for village
consumption and the pieces used to be worn by the women as cloths to wrap
around the hips.With the arrival of
cheap industrial cotton ‘paignes’ the bogolan gradually lost its local use, but
the bogolan workers found a a new outlet through the white traders who used to
pass by and commission work which they sold on theEuropean or American market.